Friday, March 29, 2024

Google Cast picking up new API tricks to bring multiscreen and multiplayer gaming to you

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At Google I/O I swung by the Google Cast booths to see what they had in store for the Chromecast. Speculation had pegged the announcement of a Chromecast 2 device, but I have yet to get a solid word on succh a device. Not that one isn’t still on the way, it just wasn’t making headlines at the show. What the Google Cast team did have to show was still very news worthy though.

First up is a new Games Manager API’s as part of the Google Cast SDK. These new API’s will allow game developers to build shared and multiplayer games that will work with Google Cast senders, Android and iOS, and play them through to the TV on Google Cast ready receivers, like the Chromecast. To simplify all that, you can pull out your Nexus 6 and gaming in the living room with your buddy on his iPhone 6 Plus at the same time.

Next we have Google Cast Remote Display which will also be for Android and iOS devices. This function gives app and game developers the ability to take advantage of the multiscreen Google Cast model. In doing so, developers can create a complete experience on your Cast receiver while delivering a user interface or second set of abilities on your phone or tablet. I watched a demo of how this works out where a the game utilized the devices front facing camera to see you. Think Xbox Kinect. On the phone screen you only saw yourself , but on the game screen on the TV you saw your character emulating your motions. In this case it was flapping your arms. Another use case was utilizing your phones screen as a touch screen controller while the game is playing on your TV.

Google Cast (2)

The final addition includes Autoplay and Queuing abilities. This will give developers the ability to create and use content queues and pull a second video and begin buffering it prior to the first video ending. Think Netflix, Hulu and Plex. These apps let you queue up videos, or keeps a series playing back to back. However, they don’t seamlessly switch without a screen, or delay between content. With the new addition a video would just start at the end of the first one played.

I didn’t catch a launch date for the new developer abilities, but I do know that the Google Cast team will be having two session talks about it all today. I assume that means it will be available today, or very soon

The post Google Cast picking up new API tricks to bring multiscreen and multiplayer gaming to you appeared first on AndroidSPIN.

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